iOS users If you’re wondering why the iMessage stuck, you’re going to be quite upset to know that the service is currently suffering from downtime that appears to be more than a little widespread.

According to a very quick perusal of Twitter, issues with the popular messaging service for iOS 5 and later are quite common at the moment.

The service was introduced in the middle of 2011, and has become a cornerstone part of the iOS mobile platform. According to Apple’s status page, all is well. That, however, is not the case.

This is not the first time iMessage has had issues. Just a few weeks past, the service went through a period of downtime as well. That outage was preceded by a period of instability in September.

Update : Apple has updated its status page, acknowledging the issues that iMessage is currently suffering from, noting “Users are unable to use iMessage. Normal service will be restored ASAP,” and “Users may be unable to place FaceTime calls. Normal service will be restored ASAP.”

Update : Apple’s status page now shows that all services have been restored.